Sixers coach Brett Brown on Danny Granger: 'I don't begrudge him'

(AP)

For now, Danny Granger remains
with the 76ers.

A Sixers spokesman said the
team is not any closer to reaching a buyout agreement on the contract of the
ninth-year forward, who according to reports was less than thrilled to be
traded from Eastern Conference-contending Indiana.

Saturday is the deadline by
which Granger must be on a team’s roster for the 30-year-old to be eligible for
that club’s playoff roster.

Granger’s desire to sever ties
with the Sixers does not bother coach Brett Brown.

“It doesn’t,” Brown said. “Maybe
it should, but it doesn’t.”

Brown said he and Sixers
general manager Sam Hinkie have spoken with Granger, and that the team is
trying to respect his Granger’s wishes.

“He’s a good guy, a good
person and a heck of a player,” Brown said. “Everybody has different ideas on
what’s best for them and their family at this stage of his career. I don’t
begrudge him for any of that. It’s always our job to run a business and treat
people well.

“We will do that, and I think
the timeline with Danny is still open-ended. No decision has been made in any
regard yet. I suspect one will happen in the not-too-distant future.”

Granger was sent to the Sixers
by the Pacers at the trade deadline, in exchange for forwards Evan Turner and
Lavoy Allen.

Danny Granger’s status with
the 76ers remains unclear, though it sounds like both sides are working toward a
buyout arrangement.

For the time being, Granger is
not with the team. He was not at Wells Fargo Center for Monday’s game against
Milwaukee, Sixers coach Brett Brown said, and there was no locker room stall
arranged for him.

“He's in the city of Philadelphia. Go find him,” Brown
said. “He's got a fake wig and sunglasses on.”

Granger finished his physical
Sunday, after which he met with Brown. He also sat down with Sixers general
manager Sam Hinkie sometime over the weekend, Brown said.

Acquired from Indiana at the Feb.
20 trade deadline, Granger does not seem to have any interest in playing for
the Sixers. If he seeks a buyout of the remainder of his contract, it’d be for
roughly $4 million. Brown insists that “there’s still more going on with the
discussions,” however.

“He most definitely wants to
play basketball this year,” Brown said of Granger. “The obvious stuff is
assessing his goals at this stage of his career. He’s a player and he wants to
play. Just trying to sort out what’s going to be best for both parties has yet to
be determined.”

But Granger and the Sixers are
at a critical juncture: If the ninth-year forward is looking to be on a team’s
playoff roster, he has to be signed by March 1. That would make Thursday or
Friday of this week the cutoff for both he and the Sixers to reach an agreement
on Granger parting ways.

Danny Granger has completed the last installment of his
physical, and 76ers coach Brett Brown said he intended to sit down with the
30-year-old forward Sunday afternoon.

Granger did not see or participate in the Sixers’
two-hour practice at PCOM. Brown said Granger was not even in the building.

“He was going through the final stages of physicals and I’m
going to be meeting with him within the hour,” Brown said.

Granger, who was acquired from Indiana Thursday at the
trade deadline, reportedly does not want to play for the Sixers and is said to
be seeking a buyout of the remainder of his contract. The small forward is
making $14 million this season.

Only Sixers general manager Sam Hinkie has spoken with
Granger, Brown said, though the coach expected that to change in the 60 minutes
following his team’s practice.

“Sam has met with him,” Brown said. “(Granger) has done
his physicals and he’ll come back and I’ll sit down with him for the first time
now that the physicals have been had and talk with him.”

GM Sam Hinkie on practice facility plans: 'It's going to be important ... for culture'

(AP)

Friday afternoon, Sam Hinkie spoke to reporters in a
back room at PCOM, in front of a water-stained Sixers banner. Not the optimum
conditions, for sure.

That being said, the 76ers' general manager offered a glimpse into what could be. He gave an update on the oft-discussed
future practice facility for the Sixers, which is expected to be built on
ground at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in South Philadelphia.

There’s no timetable for its
groundbreaking or its completion, Hinkie said, but work is being done behind
the scenes.

“I’ve spent a lot of time –
none in the last 10 days – but a lot of time in the last six months traveling
around, visiting a lot of facilities, NBA facilities, college facilities and
the like as we try to put our plans together,” Hinkie said. “And (ours) is
going to be big. I think it’s important. I will say this. One of the things
(why) it’s going to be important is for culture.

“It’s a place where our
players feel welcomed and safe and they’re getting the best instruction in the
world and that they have a little extra incentive to get up some extra shots or
a little extra incentive to – if he can do it, if Jason Richardson can do it on
a Tuesday at 10 a.m. and I just came in from the D-League, maybe I can do it,
too. If he’s in there working in the weight room, maybe I should get in there,
too. I think that’s as important as using it as a recruiting tool, as an engine
for how we live and how we work every day.”

The trade deadline had passed
when the 76ers made their biggest move of the day.

The Sixers acquired small
forward Danny Granger from Indiana in exchange for Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen,
according to Yahoo! Sports. It was one of four trades consummated by the Sixers
on what turned out to be a hectic but productive trade deadline for first-year
general manager Sam Hinkie.

Here’s a quick rundown of the
rest of the Sixers’ moves Thursday, though some details have yet to be ironed
out:

What the 76ers got:

SF Danny Granger (from IND)

C Henry Sims and F Earl
Clark (from CLV)

G Eric Maynor (from WSH)

C Byron Mullens (from LAC)

Two 2014 second-round picks
(from CLV)

One 2015 second-round pick
(from WSH)

One 2016 second-round pick
(from DEN)

What the 76ers gave up:

C Spencer Hawes (to CLV)

SF Evan Turner (to IND)

F/C Lavoy Allen (to IND)

A reported second-round pick,
in an undetermined draft (to LAC)

These trades square up the
Sixers’ roster at the 15-man maximum.

The biggest acquisition for
the Sixers is Granger, the ninth-year forward who has battled injuries while
playing only 34 games in the last two seasons. The 6-9, 228-pound Granger has
played in the Pacers’ last 29 games, averaging 8.3 points and 3.6 rebounds. The
2009 All-Star and Most Improved Player has seen his career sidetracked by a
host of knee injuries, including patellar tendinosis.

Granger is in the final year
of his contract, and is making $14.01 million. As Hinkie has shown, he prefers
to buy low and sell high – as was the case with casting off All-Star point
guard Jrue Holiday as his career trajectory was on its ascension.

The trade brings to an end
Evan Turner’s tenure with the Sixers. Turner never lived up to expectations
heaped upon him as the No. 2 pick in the 2010 draft. Turner is averaging 17.4
points this season. Over his nearly four-season career, he’s averaged 11.8
points and 5.5 rebounds.

Report: Sixers trade Spencer Hawes to Cavs

(AP)

The 76ers have traded center Spencer Hawes to Cleveland, according to multiple reports.

Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski was first to report the trade Thursday morning, the day of the NBA trade deadline. Wojnarowski reported that the Sixers will receive two 2014 second-round picks, forward Earl Clark and center Henry Sims from the Cavaliers in return for Hawes.

Clark has a $4.25 million team option for next season, and Sims has nothing beyond this season, so the Sixers could financially cut ties with both at the end of this season.

Later in the day, the Sixers got two second-round picks (for an undisclosed draft year) and guard Eric Maynor from Washington in a three-team deal, that also included Denver, in which the Sixers gave up nothing significant. (It'll probably amount to cash.) Maynor has a $2.1 million player option for next season.

Hawes, traded to the Sixers from Sacramento in June 2010, spent nearly four seasons with the team. His two-year deal was set to expire at the end of the season.

The Sixers' initial interest in moving Hawes was to attain a first-round pick in return. As the trade deadline neared, it can only be assumed that Sixers general manager Sam Hinkie lowered his asking price to help facilitate a move.

The 76ers have until 3 p.m.
this afternoon to decide whether to cut ties with free-agents-to-be Evan Turner
and Spencer Hawes, sell off Thaddeus Young and his one remaining year under
contract plus a player option, or any conceivable configuration of the two. (The latest, it would seem, is an ESPN report that the Cavaliers are eying Hawes.)

What does Sixers coach Brett
Brown think is going to happen?

“What I expect is nothing,” he
said. “Every one of my years, this stuff has surfaced – and it’s to a greater
level here – but it surfaces with San Antonio. We were very clandestine. We flew
under the radar better than most. It inevitably, through the media, surfaces.
It’s part of pro sport.

“I expect to wake up and coach
the team I had the previous day. I think the stats and the facts confirm that
opinion. Most times, this period of time is highly overblown.”

Brown’s involvement in roster
moves for the Sixers is somewhat hands-off, he said at Wednesday’s practice. He
said he leaves those goings-on to general manager Sam Hinkie. The two, Brown
said, have a regular running dialogue, but the first-year coach said he and the
Sixers’ ownership group trust Hinkie, the first-year GM.

“We talk all the time and, at
the end of the day, I really trust Sam Hinkie’s judgment and I leave it with
Sam,” Brown said. “My experience over the years is that not a lot happens. This
is going to be left with Sam’s better judgment. This is why the club hired him.
This is his strength. It doesn’t diminish communication at all.

“I’m in this for the long
haul, and this is the first wave of a very long process. I coach this team, I
enjoy coaching this team, I’m doing my very best to coach this team and we got
up this morning, had a great, spirited session and life moves on.”